Are Humans Disappearing?

Photographs by Orin Langelle

The Opening Reception for Are Humans Disappearing by photographer Orin Langelletakes place from 6 to 9 p.m. on First Friday May 5th at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art in Buffalo at 148 Elmwood Avenue. Wine and hors d’oeuvres will be available. Exhibit closes May 26th.

The theme of the exhibit Roadmap to Extinction: Are Humans Disappearing? is the possibility of human extinction if serious steps are not taken.

It was first shown in 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark during the annual UN Climate Convention. Its original theme was climate change and its threat to human kind.

These are not the usual photographs one associates with climate change: ice caps and glaciers melting or polar bears adrift.

Others viewers commented that the exhibit reflects our fleeting existence. The photos depict a progression of images moving in stages from recognizable human forms to figures almost completely unrecognizable.

Today the images continue to reveal that, in the age of Trump, we face an existential crisis in which humanity itself may well be rapidly disappearing.

The photographs in Roadmap to Extinction: Are Humans Disappearing? were shot in October 2008 in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, Spain. They were inspired by a International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) conference happening there where Shell Oil sponsored the climate justice pavilion. The photos reflect the sublime absurdity of the world’s dirtiest companies offering so called ‘solutions’ to social and ecological crises.

The photos also expose the reality that time and space are fleeting and we are on this planet for only a brief time, so we should use that time meaningfully.

After the Opening Reception the show is by appointment only. For an appointment, please call +1.716.931.5833.